Computer servers can handle confidential data and perform critical operations. The proper behavior of these servers is essential for the proper functioning of our economy and government. “Primary” servers can depend on “secondary” servers (and on networked peripheral devices) in critical ways. The failure or compromise of a secondary server or peripheral device can cause the failure or compromise of the primary server. Therefore, it can be essential to verify the security of the secondary servers and peripheral devices.
Generally, integrity checks of an endpoint may be applied before access is granted to a network, in addition to traditional user authentication and/or authorization. For example, before granting access, a network may wish to check if an endpoint's virus protection program is up-to-date, if the endpoint has downloaded the correct software patches, if the endpoint has any spyware or viruses present, etc. However, these integrity checks do not pertain to server-to-server and server-to-peripheral health checking.